Prairie 9
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he land and the people hold memories, even among theanthills and the angleworms, among the toads andwoodroaches—among gravestone writings rubbedout by the rain—they keep old things that nevergrow old. The frost loosens corn husks.The sun, the rain, the windloosen corn husks.The men and women are helpers.They are all cornhuskers together.I see them late in the western eveningin a smoke-red dust. The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarletcomb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah tothe streaks of daylight, The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the under-brush for muskrats, barking at a coon in a treetopat midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail rounda corncrib, The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel pointof a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitchedto a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon amongcornshocks in fall,
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